2004;1860:783-790.
"ProSens" enhancement of quality control in complex production cooperations.
T Pfeifer, Z Li, U Glaser, Vdi/Vde
UIID-AD: 146
Abstract
In the background of economical globalisation, in order to make an optimized use of resources, a product is developed collaboratively among different companies and in spread locations. Furthermore, the increasing customer demands concerning product quality and diversity require flexibility, stability and efficiency from all involved ressources, and a decentralized manufacturing control using homogenised, flexible and efficient measures to assure high quality and low costs is of vital importance. A significant example is the dramatically growing quantity of Sino-German production cooperations, which are facing the critical question how to minimise the risk of unfamiliar cooperation partners when developing products. Lack of unifications und communication methods cause identical measurements to be carried out at subcontractors or customers with different measurement processes, which lead to incomparable results. Moreover, lack of efficiency and flexibility increases the measurement costs. In order to support industrial production co-operations between Germany and China, in a Sino-German development project called "ProSens", a quality control based on automatical inspection planning, multi-sensor coordinate measurement machines and web-based metrology knowledge is being carried out. With the automated inspection planning, the product model from CAD software will be directly transferred into the inspection planning software, where a measurement plan will be automatically generated. Changes in design will immediately influence the measurement planning. To employ capable sensors, which fit optimally to inspection features, on hardware side, a multisensor coordinate measurement machine (CMM) has been realized by combining a conventional tactile sensor with a conoscopic holography sensor. Complex measurement features, e.g. free form surfaces, can be measured with less time and quite high accuracy whereas regular geometries will be measured superiorly with tactile sensors. On the software side, the main developments focus on an optimized application of sensors in use, e.g. the optimal orientation of the laser sensor to the surface to be measured. A web-based knowledge database enables all cooperative departments to share important information, e.g. inspection feature-based experience to select a proper and unified measurement strategy. With that a homogenized quality control in a decentralized production network can be built up. Further more, a training program has been established to enable a direct know-how and technology transfer between german and chinese industry.
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